This document provides an introduction to product management. It discusses that product management defines what is being developed and sold by identifying customer needs. The role requires interfacing with development, sales, and marketing. Key responsibilities of product management include defining requirements, prioritizing development, market analysis, roadmapping, and reporting. The document cautions that product management is not the same as project management, product architecture, or marketing. It emphasizes building trust with stakeholders through understanding different perspectives and communicating facts about users and markets.

1. Introduction to
Product Management
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT:
A JOURNEY
Calum Tsang
tsangc@mie.utoronto.ca
www.productcamp.org/toronto
May 30, 2010 – Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University

2. Who is this session for?
 People who are entering the field of product
management for the first time
 People who’ve been thrown into the role Product
Manager and need definition
 People who see a need for a product management
role in their organization and want to know what it
entails.
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

3. Does this sound like you?
 Do you feel like a firefighter?
 Do you end up juggling some combination of
 Angry “Hot site” calls
 Sales demos
 Design decisions
 UI mockups/wireframes
 Tradeshows
 Bug review/triage calls
 Marcom/copy reviews
 Executive reporting/calming
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

4. What is Product Management?
 Product Management defines what we’re developing
and selling by identifying who buys the product and
their needs.
 It supports the development, sales and marketing functions.
 It leads the product strategy process.
 Product Management is hard to define, but we’re
going to try.
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

5. Most Product Managers come from
 Product Managers often come from another area of
the business
 Technology/Engineering
 Documentation
 Marketing
 User Experience or Design
 Sales Engineering/Account Management
 What they bring in experience is their strength
 eg Developer has detailed product knowledge
 What makes them stumble is holding on
 eg ex-Developer starts doing architecture and coding
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

6. A destination for product management
 Product Management is inherently intertwined with key
parts of the business:
Development
Product
Management
Sales Marketing
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

7. The Interface to Development
 Product Management
 Represents the market to the Technology team
 Defines product requirements, prioritizes their development
 I get from Development
 Development scheduling, costs, budgets
 Product Deliverables
 Process metrics like defect level trending, dev velocity
 I give to Development
Development
 Market Requirement Documents
 Review product specifications
 Develops product roadmaps Product
 Agile product stories, backlog management Management
 Reviews bugs/triages
Sales Marketing
 Go/No Go for Release
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

8. The Interface to Sales
 Product Management
 Represents the product to the Sales team
 Supports the sales process
 I get from sales
 Customer requirements/pain points/desires
 Regular product advisory
 Time in front of customers to ask them questions
 I give to sales
 Sales training
 Sales tools (qualification guides, configurators) Development
 Guides creation of Sales process
 Evangelism
 Product demonstrations
Product
 Not too much Management
 Customer support/troubleshooting
 Fruitless sales calls
Sales Marketing
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

9. The Interface to Marketing
 Product Management
 Represents the product to the Marketing team
 Positions the product in the market
 I get from Product Marketing
 Marketing materials for content/copy
 Campaign execution
 I give to Product Marketing Development
 Go-to-market strategy
 Customer profiles/demographics
Product
 Marketing briefs/positioning documents Management
 Guidance for marketing campaign Sales Marketing
 Pricing analysis
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

10. Product Management or Marketing?
 Product Marketing
 This one should be obvious
 Pricing
Product Product
 Strategic pricing Management Marketing
 eg part of business case and profitability
should be Product Management
 Tactical pricing
 eg, offers/promotional, I’d say Product Development Marketing
Marketing
 Promotion
 That’s Marketing Product Product
Management Marketing
 Placement
 That’s Marketing too
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

11. Product Management Ownership
 While a lot of activities are interfaced with other parts of
the business, there are many activities which are alone
the responsibility of Product Management.
 Ownership includes
 Business case analysis
 Metrics and reporting
 Profitability
Technology
 Market share
 Customer analysis
 Competitive analysis/benchmarking
Product
 Win/loss analysis results for improvement Management
 Product roadmap
Sales Marketing
 Executive reporting
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

12. Product Management is not
 Project Management.
 These are people focused with delivering the project on time
and budget. This is the when.
 Product Architecture.
 These are development oriented people who are responsible
for the overarching technology decisions. This is the how.
 Product Marketing.
 These are the people who will take your product to market,
outbound to the rest of the world, including pricing, campaign
and communications.
 But you might do some or all of these things too.
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

13. A matter of trust
 The product manager requires a great deal of trust from all
parties involved and demands respect.
 Technology developers
 must respect your decisions
 Marketing leads
 must trust your market positioning and product experience
 Salespeople
 must trust your interaction with their customers and respect your time
 Respect is a two way street
 Eg Developer respects your decision—but you need to respect their
timelines
 How do you earn respect?
 Build a rapport
 Take the time and effort to understand their side, explain your side
 State the (user/market) facts
 Don’t fake it
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

14. I don’t work for these guys
 But I took their course a few years ago and really
liked it:
 Practical Product Management
 Requirements that Work
 PragmaticMarketing.com
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010

15. Discussion
 How do you formalize product management
responsibilities?
 How do you introduce a distinct product
management capability into an organization?
 How do you convince your boss to let you be a
product manager?
 How do you convince your boss that you don’t do
everything?
 How do you explain to your classmates at a reunion
what exactly you do?
ProductCamp Toronto – MAY 30, 2010